And guess what the client is based on? Yes, Eclipse. It's all Eclipse plug-ins, which means that you can run just the Sametime 7.5 client, or have it all in the same WMC environment as Hannover. This is starting to develop a real picture here. As Sametime's in Eclipse, it will support Mac OS Tiger, and Linux. And because it's Eclipse, you can write plug-ins yourself to extend it, and such things were on show.

How about a location finder that can tell where you are from your IP address, and display a map showing where you are, local restaurants, weather, and so on? IBM internally has a Sametime-based Find-a-Printer service. You get to an office you've never been to, and one Sametime click finds the nearest printer and installs the drivers for it, if you don't have them already.

There's major changes to Web conferencing, such as allowing multiple presenters, upload of more material while the meeting is in progress, and lots more. There's social networking stuff -- polls, focused broadcasts, and more. Capture of chats. VoIP enablement. It replaces the current Workplace Collaboration Services IM client, giving Notes Hannover and Workplace users identical IM functionality.

On top of that, in 2006 there will be a SIP-based gateway product whose job will be linking IM communities. Using this, Lotus has made deals with AOL and Yahoo, and are nearing completion of a deal with Google for integrating GoogleTalk, which will enable a company to connect its Sametime to these public services, securely. Gateway, free. Connection to those services, free. No deal with MSN. Wonder why? You guess. Hint: has to do with $signs.

Still more. Workplace 2.6
There were a whole set of announcements over IBM Workplace, 2.6, shipping now. I'll just briefly mention Workplace Forms, which is a form management and simple workflow management process. You start with what they call "pixel perfect" forms -- indeed you can start with a scanned image -- to which you add fields and entry processes, and out come completed forms. There's better IM inside Workplace, too, with the use of Sametime 7.5 client plug-ins in the WMC, the same WMC as is the basis of the Hannover Notes client.

For Domino professionals, the most interesting part of Workplace 2.6 is Workplace Designer 2.6, which is not shipping now. This has a UI that will be very familiar to Domino developers, and develops applications based around a view/form/document model, just like Notes.

The storage of the forms, view designs and data documents is done using XML. The basic programming model works around JavaScript, on both client and server. However, there are a whole bunch of yes, @functions, in Workplace Designer to make the whole thing look familiar. Indeed, you can freely mix @function and JavaScript even in the same line of code. Internally, the @functions are converted to Javascript.

Not surprising that it looks pretty similar to Domino Designer, as it has the same core team behind it. That makes good sense, even though the core market for Workplace is not existing Notes/Domino customers. It's still aimed at providing simpler services at a lower price point to those employees who up to now haven't warranted such systems, where current business models now require bringing them into the collaboration fold.